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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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I should have noted that I’m mainly curious about the meta commentary on normies changing opinion on piracy.

Commercial interests seemed to have convinced the median online person that piracy is not ethical.

Let me throw in another possibility: Young people today are used to everything being easy to access. Piracy can insert a little bit of a learning curve. Us Gen Xers had to figure out the internet and we learned enough about how our computers work and how to configure our routers and tinker around with Napster/eMule/Limewire to figure out how to get the good quality files as opposed to the shitty files... Nowadays, kids just look at what's on Netflix and click. I have three teenage kids. I think only one of them would bother to figure out how to set up a Roku, which is comparatively easy. If I showed them how my torrent system works, their eyes would glaze over in seconds.

Yeah, the decline (and possible revival) of piracy can be summed up as "Newell Was Right:" ease of service makes piracy less attractive. However, put up too many barriers and the effort-dollars of piracy look less intimidating.